Saturday, August 08, 2009

Family's story: antidepressants to blame for child's defects?

Kaden Mendoza has just turned seven. His parents, Deborah and Kevin, gave him a big party. They do it every birthday. "It is another year that he has made it through," says Deborah.

Kaden has undergone open heart surgery three times, the first when he was nine weeks old. "We didn't find out about Kaden's heart condition straight away and we almost lost him," says his mother.

The fourth chamber of his heart was not visible on the ultrasound scan she had when she was pregnant. They didn't know it was because it was not fully developed. He was two months old when she took the baby to the doctor because he was not breastfeeding.

"His lungs were full of blood," she says. That was on 22 September 2002. On the 24th, he was airlifted to San Francisco from their home in Washington for his first heart operation.

Throughout her pregnancy, Deborah Mendoza had been taking the antidepressant Paxil, known in the UK as Seroxat. It had been prescribed by the doctor she had seen when she had a panic attack. It was a one-off, a bit of a funny turn, but her father had suffered from the same thing and had been on medication. So she took the advice and started on the tablets in June 2001.

Six months later, she was back at the doctor's surgery for a different matter. "When I found out I was pregnant, I was concerned and asked if it was alright to take while pregnant, and they said yes," she said.

Even so, she tried to stop, but found she could not. "It was awful. I was throwing up non-stop." It was nothing to do with the pregnancy, she said. She was having withdrawal symptoms. "I called my sister and I was just laying there saying, 'this is awful'."

She went to see another doctor and was told it would be better to stay on the drugs through her pregnancy.

When Kaden's heart defect was diagnosed, she had no idea that Paxil might have been responsible. It was not until 2005, when the Food and Drug Administration put out a warning that she realised what might have happened. The family is now suing GlaxoSmithKline, makers of Paxil.The future for Kaden does not look bright. His condition was made worse by complications after the insertion of an artificial tube into his heart. "He will need a heart transplant within two to ten years," his mother says. "And there is a 50% chance he will need another one after that. He suffers a lot. He loves sports. He is so good at golf and baseball and basketball, but he can't play them because he runs out of breath.

"It is hard not to be upset with GSK. No amount of money can ever make up for what's happened and what will continue to happen to Kaden."